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I’m on the road now with three friends heading to Tylertown, Mississippi for the funeral of the father of a good friend of ours.  I’m having a bit of a geek moment enjoying the fact that I’m on my laptop with internet access thanks to AT&T and the iPhone (only getting Edge coverage though… but it’s good enough!).

We’re only about an hour and a half into being on the road for real (made a few stops before really getting moving).  We’ve already had one great road trip song: “if you’re out there” by John Legend.  I hadn’t heard the song since the time of the election – but we certainly went to church in the car listening to it!

I’m going to try and check in from time to time even though this will only be a short trip.  We’ll be right back on the road coming home to Chicago after the funeral.   In the mean time, I’m going to attempt to get some of this backlog of work done.  For now, check out the video and I’ll talk to you guys soon!

I’ve created a slideshow of all the fun we had on July 4th.  ENJOY!  I really wanted to have this finished and burned to a DVD to show on the big high-def plasma screen – but the video finished rendering about 5 minutes too late!

It was so wonderful to reconnect with my family this weekend.  I’ve never valued these connections so much before.  In a lot of ways, I just didn’t know how.  I’ve got to intergrate being with my family more into my life!!!

Anyway leave comments and share what you did with your family or friends this Holiday.

This is awesome! It’s about 5am and I’m just laying down for bed. I’m in Indiana for the weekend visiting family and I didn’t realize it but I need this so much! Growing up I kept a certain distance from them wihout totally realizing it.
We watched a huge professional fireworks display put on by a few neighbors for the entire neighborhood earlier this evening. I’m not sure what is planned for the rest of the weekend but I’m looking forward to it. Sorry for the not so awesome photo of the pyrotechnics – I left my camera in the house and the iPhone isn’t great at capturing fireworks – lol

Oh – and I’m also publishing this from my iPhone, which I will write a review of later.

At church we’re doing a 5-week series on family.  This has been a pretty powerful series.  Check out today’s message. http://bit.ly/UUsO and feel free to share your thoughts!

Last night in our music team rehearsal, there was a great time of sharing.  A common theme was family – there were all kinds of family situations at various states.  Right now, most of my blood related family lives in other states.  A few weeks ago I was renewed in my need to start working through the messy details of my own family.  One step was talking to my mom (sent an e-mail) about several things that I’ve wanted to ask about but didn’t want to stir difficult emotions by bringing them up.  She let me know where she was with those things and it freed me to do whatever I felt I needed in my relationships with my other family members.  In many ways I still don’t know how everything is going to work out, but I’m beginning a new chapter and hopefully can begin to build and restore some connections.

My Aunt (center) with two other relatives.

God is working on all of us.  This morning my Aunt (my Father’s sister) called me.  Things have been difficult since the passing of my father (her brother) in 2003.  Both my mom and I were already facing some financial hardships and his passing was completely unexpected.  Our family often keeps messy situations private, so my mom and I chose to quickly and quietly deal with his arrangements and estate.  What I didn’t realize at the time is how much that hurt my aunt.  There’s probably volumes more to this story that I don’t know about as well, but it was at least a year later before my aunt began to share with me her pain.  That was rough because I was dealing with so much un-processed pain at the time myself.  I was amazed to know that she was so affected and that’s why we hadn’t talked. It was then that I realized just how connected my family is. When my aunt called this morning, she was calling to let me know that she wants to start fresh and that she’s sorry we haven’t been in touch.  I wish I could have hugged her right through my cell phone.  I don’t want to continue in the patterns of silence that we’ve maintained for so long.

Individually everyone of us could be bleeding to death in the same room, but as long as we can keep it to ourselves, no one would ever mention it to the other.  In retrospect, my Dad had emotional pains as well, that unless absolutely necessary – he wasn’t going to bring up.  It’s just the way we deal with things – inside.  Unfortunately it caused us to love each other but from a distance.  For me, I grew up knowing I was loved, but that the ‘bad parts’ of me needed to be kept locked away until I ‘fixed’ them on my own.  It’s what all of us did so I didn’t think it was anything less than normal.  It’s only in my adult years after growing closer to some other families that I realize that what I grew up with isn’t the de facto standard of human civilization.  That some families go through everything together good and bad.  That I could intern be loved / accepted with my good and bad showing – novel concept for me.

All of this is new for me.  I’m thankful for the beginning of reconcilliation.  I feel so strongly that this is our time to heal.